Mum's Earache Was Fatal Meningitis

A mum of three died from meningitis - five days after being hospitalised with EARACHE.

Jo Graham, who was mum to Jade, 12, Callum, eight, and Kayla, four, was admitted to Coventry University Hospital in November last year.

She thought she was suffering from an intense infection, but when she didn't respond to treatment, her doctors decided to put her into an induced coma.

Her husband Mark eventually had to make the heartbreaking decision to turn off her life support machine when medics told him nothing more could be done to treat her.

The Sun reports that tests Jo had when she was alive failed to spot she had meningitis - and it was not picked up on until a post-mortem was carried out.

Jo's devastated relatives are now speaking out about her tragic death to raise awareness about meningitis.

Her mum, Pat Collins, told her local paper that she had been in hospital herself the day that Jo was admitted, but was only well enough to leave her own sick bed when her daughter's life support machine was switched off. She said Jo had begun feeling ill as she attended a Christmas lights switch-on in their local town.

"They were at the Christmas lights switch-on in Kenilworth, Jo, her dad Roy and her children. I was at Warwick Hospital with pneumonia," Mrs Collins said. "She told Roy she wasn't feeling very well and Roy took her to hospital in Coventry.

"Jo was given tablets and was told she could probably go home the following day but she wasn't getting any better and she stayed in hospital."

Pat, 71, said she was then told that Jo was 'not expected to last another day' and the decision had been made to switch her life support system off.

"Jo was bubbly, her children were her life and she loved her job, all that's been taken from her," Pat said. "Part of us still can't believe that she's gone. We still keep expecting her to walk through the door."

The family agreed to donate Jo's organs after her death, and they helped to save the lives of four people.